Thinking to be Paid versus Being Paid to Think

Authors

Merritt B. Fox, Columbia Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1994

Abstract

In the first chapter of The Economic Structure of Corporate Law, Frank Easterbrook and Daniel Fischel make an arresting statement:

... [P]eople who are backing their beliefs with cash are correct; they have every reason to avoid mistakes, while critics (be they academics or regulators) are rewarded for novel rather than accurate beliefs. Market professionals who estimate these things wrongly suffer directly; academics and regulators who estimate wrongly do not pay a similar penalty. Persons who wager with their own money may be wrong, but they are less likely to be wrong than are academics and regulators, who are wagering with other peoples' money.

In other words, society should trust decisions to people who put their money where their mouths are.

When I first read this passage, I was a bit perturbed. Now that Easterbrook and Fischel had published the book that pulled together their many important contributions to corporate law, it looked like they wanted to put the rest of academia – and The Journal of Corporation Law – out of business. More dispassionate reflection, however, reveals that there is something to what they have to say.

Disciplines

Business Organizations Law | Judges | Law | Law and Economics | Securities Law

Recommended Citation

Merritt B. Fox, Thinking to be Paid versus Being Paid to Think, 19 J. Corp. L. 761 (1994).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2888